


cauterize

by wtfmulder



Series: tend the wound [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, diana arch bullshit, it's a very dramatic take on the characters but it has good Drama, this is way less sad but i still promise to punch you guys a little
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:28:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23906923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtfmulder/pseuds/wtfmulder
Summary: Part three of the "pocket guts" trilogy. Mulder and Scully have a lot to do to fix their relationship before it even begins.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Series: tend the wound [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/973575
Comments: 33
Kudos: 126





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This series has now been renamed "tend the wound" because I like it better. Also "pocket guts" is just "guts" now. Thanks guys!

What Scully needs, he thinks to himself on a Saturday morning, is to get back to work on the X-Files. It is truly an act of altruism when he calls her early, early, before he even brushes his teeth. He doesn’t even give himself time to weigh the potential consequences of such a boundary crossing. After months and months of pure hell, they are breathing Earthen air, and he wants to see her, and he wants to see her now. He never sees her outside of work, so this is his plan. Bring Scully to work.  
He calls. He asks. He knows it’s a yes when she whines What, on a Saturday, Mulder?, because when Scully means no, her voice goes cold, so professional it straightens his posture. She’s raring to do some work after a week on medical leave, on the account of one asshole who wanted to remove one of her most important organs. Of course she’ll pretend like she doesn’t want to, because that’s their dynamic, but that’s their dynamic. It’s one small step away from the suffocating resentment that threatened to pull them apart. 

Strolling through the Hoover building in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, he remembers he doesn’t have shit for them to do. Not on a Saturday. Any leads on a new case they might want to follow will have to go through Skinner, and that man sure as hell won’t come in on a Saturday. Tossing paperwork her way might grant him a heel to the shin. Faking something will ruin his credibility. She already thinks most of this is fake.

What do nerds like? He wonders. What does Scully do on a Saturday? What do I do on a Saturday?  
He knows she reads books and takes bubble baths. Unfortunately there are no bathtubs in the Hoover building. He takes a detour to the record’s department, scouring for ideas, and comes across a set of reference books containing newspaper prints. Alright, but what are we looking for? Probably aliens. He snags a book with 1946-1950 embossed in gold on the spine and whistles on his leisurely walk down to the basement, a rare state of placidity settling in his chest. 

Wait, where’s Scully’s book. He leaves her a voicemail to pick up 1940-1945 on her way into the office. It’s boring, pretending to work when she’s not there for him to harass, so he turns on the game, flips through dusty yellow pages, and starts reading box scores to pass the time. It’s a strange turn of events: he gets so into it he barely notices her struggling with the giant book on the steps, not until she sets it down to sigh and stare out of the skylight like a sad puppy in a crate. 

Everything is better than his richly hued imagination could ever come up with. Scully is happy to be there. With him. And it feels — it feels normal. Most of the time, he’ll squeeze out the single ounces of joy in his life and use them as fuel to pursue, to risk, to fight. But instead, just for the moment, he watches her laugh, he riles her up, she flirtingly pities his sad little shut in life. So young and new is this lightness between them that it temporarily transports them back into childish infatuation — he knocks her ice cream out of her hands. She calls him boring. He does think, a little wistfully, about kissing her, but neither of them are ready for that, especially after all that happened last weekend; although damn Scully, that was pretty kinky. But even if they — 

Is that Arthur Dales? 

***

Of course Scully is the first one he calls after everything he’s learned. That’s just the way it is. He discovers something and needs to share it with her, immediately, because otherwise he just doesn’t know what to do with it. He also owes her after ditching her. And destroying her ice cream. And all of the other things, including missing her birthday for… two years now, so he figures now is a good time to pay that up, too. Settle some scores. Score a homerun. Score. Maybe someday.

It doesn’t burn him, the way he feared, to be a someone who makes another someone happy. It doesn’t burn him to hold her without the threat of death hanging over their heads. She is gorgeous under the lights of the field, she is warm and alive in his hands when he shows her how to swing, and she is the exact same person she’s always been. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying when he murmurs into her ear. He just wants to be close. As an added bonus, they are incredibly good at baseball in a way they should not be with four hands on the bat. It’s just another sign that there’s something more for them out there, something sweet and bright.

*** 

It’s not that this is a side of Mulder she’s never seen before; he’s always had that touch of romance hidden underneath his brooding and manic urge to chase. It’s more that he’s never taken it so far. For so long it felt like he didn’t want her to know this part of him. Why? She didn’t always know. Sometimes she thought it was shame holding him back, a rigidly held belief that he is undeserving of love. In darker times, she thought maybe he felt she didn’t deserve it either. 

Eventually it gets too late to justify child labor, and Mulder sends the kid on his way home with twenty bucks and a pat on the back. Then it’s just the two of them, alone, under a bright moon. They lean up against the hood of his car and chat quietly. 

Now that it’s not an issue of practicality — he’s no longer her teacher — they stand with an appropriate amount of space between them. She can still feel the warmth of him, though, even through her jacket. Her mouth hurts from smiling so much. Her hands are sore after squeezing the bat. 

“So why baseball, Mulder?” She asks, kicking a little bit at the dirt, crossing her arms loosely over her stomach.

He laughs, rubbing the back of his neck a little self-consciously. “You were the one telling me I should be entertaining the idea of trying to find life on this planet.” 

“I thought you found it lacking,” she counters. 

“Well, for the most part it is. You see, there’s been no evidence to support the existence of nonfat toffuti rice dreamsicles in outer space, so I have to count that in its favor.” His shoulder knocks hers. Slowly they are inching closer and closer together. 

“You obviously couldn’t have hated it that much, Mulder. You ate the whole thing!”

“To prove a point,” he says smugly. 

“What point could you have possibly made, except for your immeasurable capacity to inflict cruelty?” 

“Remember me next time you bring ice cream.” His hand finds her hip. “I like chocolate,” he adds, like she doesn’t know. 

“Hmm. We’ll see.” 

“The real kind.” The hand slips, gliding gently over the small of her back.

“Awfully picky for someone getting free ice cream.”

“What can I say? I know what I want.”

“You do?” She means it as a joke, but his face falls into something much more serious that doesn’t quite fit the tone of the night. 

“I do,” he says, roughly. 

It’s all silent save for the crickets in the field, and she takes the moment to think about what everything means. While her mind works, Mulder slips his hand all the way around her waist. It’s a very intimate way to be held, though less formal than handholding. Something about it demonstrates familiarity. She closes her eyes and soaks in the heat of him. 

“I don’t think I’ve been fair to you,” she says. It’s been a week since their explosive argument — only seven days after one of the lowest periods of her life. The sheer embarrassment of that night helps her keep her emotions in check. There’s very little anyone could do to make her feel worse than that. 

“Scully…” he pauses, struggling for words. Her tongue passes over her lips. So much consideration before he speaks, all of this patience, this simplicity between them. It’s not their default. If this is some kind of hysterical bonding, she won’t be able to take it, and it will ruin them. “You are the only person in my life who has ever worried about treating me with fairness.” 

“I’m not leaving,” she says, suddenly fearful of where this is going. If this turns into another plea to get her to stay, it will feel too much like they’re moving in the same circuitous pattern she’s been following her whole life. She wants to break out of that with Mulder, not damn them both to never progressing. 

“Yeah. I’ll just track you down by the chip in your neck.” He whispers. “Like they do with dogs that run away.” 

“Mulder!” She smacks him on the chest, which makes him pull her closer to his body. His sweat and cologne make her feel dizzy in a nice way, sleepy and safe.

“I just wanted to play baseball with you, Scully,” he tells her gently, moving her hair out of her eyes. They look at each other while he cradles her in his arms, such a familiar position for the two of them. “Today it’s just baseball, and then it’s whatever we want.”

Not likely, but it’s a pleasant thought. Pressing her cheek to his chest, she sighs. “Mulder, you know what I want?” 

“A six-foot bed warmer with killer abs?” He tries. 

She scrunches her nose and pulls away to look up at him. He winks. In a serious voice, Scully demands ice cream.

“You want ice cream?” He smacks a kiss on her forehead. “We’ll getcha ice cream. Hop in the car, Scully.”

“I drove here, Mulder,” she reminds him. She hops in anyway.

At the convenience store they stop at, Scully actually ends up insisting that it’s her treat, and by the look on Mulder’s face she sees he can be stupidly easy to please. 

Nothing feels even slightly resolved; she knows they will have their fair share of problems in the future. But she never even realized anything could be this nice between them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This series has now been renamed "tend the wound" because I like it better. Also "pocket guts" is just "guts" now. Thanks guys!

It takes a day in the hospital for them to fully come down from their exposure to the mushroom spores in Brown Mountain. They’re treated for their chemical burns — considerably mild, despite the length of their exposure — and are essentially left alone in their separate rooms to ride it out. While the rooms are separate, they are anything but.

  
For the most part, they sit in silence, enjoying each other’s company as the scenery changes. One moment they’re at their bench near The Mall, the next they’re holding hands and looping M Street. Mulder briefly takes her on a trip to his old summer home in Quonochontaug, and the earth shifts, the mood. It unsettles them, the closeness, something so personal revealed. The idyllic cotton ball clouds speckle with dirt and grow taller. There’s a crack of something that could be thunder. They wait for the rain.

But it never comes. Tension eases into sweet intimacy. He reaches for her hand again, and when their fingers slide into place, when they find the right groove and make a home there, the clouds disappear. Nothing but blue sky, the anchor of that sacred grip, and the green grass breathing underneath their shoes. It lifts them and lowers them. It lifts them and lowers them. Scully wonders if it’s the beating of his heart that makes the ground move. He wonders if it's hers. Together they decide it must be the combination.

He feels through her, sees things through her. Images projected with no context. A nagging anxiety with no real cause. He wants to unravel it. He wants to pick it apart and stomp it into the dirt. It comes and goes, just like the scenery, but he senses that this is more of a permanent fixture in her life, something she struggles with every day. Such a small little thing. But it gets to you after awhile, that little piece of fruit stuck in your shell. Isn’t it his job to dig it out? And how? All he can do is squeeze her hand tighter, drag her somewhere else that doesn’t make her feel so sad. Now they’re in the basement, on a Saturday, and her face is bathed in the skylight.

She pulls her hand from his. If she floats away, he’ll freak the hell out and burn the office down himself. Thankfully Scully just wants to touch the wall, slide her palm over their poster. He settles back into himself, missing when he was also her.

“I was assigned here,” she says. “Almost seven years ago, now.”

If he’s not honest with her, he’s afraid he’ll die. Just like in her vision. She’ll sense his dishonesty and they will together fade away. “The best day of my life,” he admits.

A war is waged. He means it with his whole self and his certainty pushes up against her fear. She doesn’t quite believe him, even now. He supposes that’s his fault.

“I had proof, Scully.” He steps up behind her and fits his hands over her waist. She locks inside of him. She fits perfectly like a little matryoshka doll. Pull him apart and then there’s her. “I thought I had it. I let myself believe that I did. But then you showed up…” Her hair sighs. He feels each individual strand when he rubs his face into her scalp. “And I knew it wasn’t true. I didn’t have the proof. You made me work for it, like you always do.”

That little knot loosens up, the one inside her head. And oh, there it is. That’s what she’s feeling. His hands move from her waist to slide over her stomach and pull her closer to him. There’s no quick fix for it, there’s no pulling it all out of her and turning it to ash. It’s inadequacy. She’s looking at the poster and wondering where she fits in.

“I want to believe,” she reads aloud, tracing the words with her nail. But she doesn’t, not yet. All she’s ever asked for is proof.

“I’ll find it for you.” Whatever she needs. He’ll bring a goddamn alien right to her front door if he has to. He’ll put them on a rocketship to outerspace. He’ll tell her he loves her every day, if they’re ever ready for that. He’ll marry her when this is all over. And he has to believe it will be, because if this is all for nothing, if he hurt her, repeatedly, for nothing, he can’t, he won’t —

They’re back in the dirt. The digestive enzymes burn through his skin so quickly this time. He is melting into nothing. Melting feels like nothing, actually, it doesn’t hurt at all, he is yellow yellow bubbles and then he’s human foam, soaking into the earth to feed the mushroom, he is now food, it is now over —

“Mulder! Mulder!”

They’re in Scully’s apartment. His legs hang over the couch. Kneeling before him, Scully takes his face into her hands and begs for him to wake up.

He shoots up like he’s spring loaded and hauls her on top of him. Kissing her brings him back to himself. Her little tongue is a lifeline and her body butterfly pins him to safety. The weight of her soothes aches he didn’t even know he had; he wants to pour into all of her empty spaces and finally make her feel like she’s enough.

She kisses him back furiously, filling her fists with his hair and chewing on his bottom lip as she sinks and rises and sinks and rises above him. He can’t get hard, fucking hates himself for it, but everywhere they touch they are sealed, bound, more than that — mixed, homogenous. There is no separating them. Boil them up. Sift them through a colander. Run over them with a magnet. There never was and there never will be a Fox Mulder without a Dana Scully.

But what he would give to know what she is thinking, just as herself, without his own mind shaping their path. What trip would she take him on if she decided to let him in?

***

A setback occurs, once again, in that basement office they spend too much time in.

Scully knows that her biological clock has permanently fixed hands. They will never move forward again. It’s the most irrational, stubborn part of her that pushes her into those doctor’s appointments with a hope for good news.

The call to motherhood grows louder and louder with every irreparable loss. Near death experiences urge her to consider what her purpose in this life is, what she wants to give to the world. Developments in her relationship with Mulder also play a role in this dire need to be proven wrong. Just looking at him fills her with hope she shouldn’t have, even though he has no idea what she’s praying for. He doesn’t know what’s going on in her mind in all of those comfortable silences. What she thinks about at night, trying and failing not to cry.

But this last appointment finally settles it for her. It frees her, in a way. She just needs time and space to process it. Instead of joining Mulder for lunch, she’s been going for walks around the building, people watching, trying to ground herself after spending years flying too close to the sun.

When Mulder catches on and pushes her to tell him what’s wrong, she’s beside herself with guilt. I didn’t tell him. With the direction their relationship is heading, that information should have been revealed much earlier. He should have a choice.

But as it turns out, he’d never given her a choice in the first place.

His deception drags up past hurts like reanimated corpses. They follow her everywhere she goes. It physically pains her to be near him in the days she waits for her doctor to get back to her with that second opinion. She and Mulder haven’t spoken much since he’d given her the information for the clinic where her ova was being stored — for the best, because what she wants to say to him would have permanent consequences for their partnership.

As for Mulder, he’s smart enough to keep his mouth shut. This recognizable personal growth isn’t lost on Scully; no matter how mad she is at him, she does notice when he’s trying. And his existence never ceases to have that pull on her. Whenever he is around, she will have hope. What a blessing and a curse that is.

In this case, it’s a blessing.

The ova is viable.

She can’t help but wonder what would have happened if she didn’t have Mulder. Would she have given up? After receiving the news, she pulls him aside, hugs him tight, and thanks him for being in her life. She apologizes for her anger, no matter how justifiable it was. His happiness for her is a physical thing that brings her such joy it threatens to come out of her throat as a scream. Instead she holds him close, buries her face in his chest… and can’t help the wild hope that fills her yet again.


	3. Chapter 3

She can’t do this if Mulder isn’t involved in some way. Trying to envision what her child might look like has always been painful for her, and so she never does it often, but in those moments of vulnerability they always look little like Mulder. A boy with floppy brown hair who could never be kept in a crib for too long, not with those adept tiny limbs. A girl with soft hazel eyes and a knack for wriggling out of the arms of authority when it was time to clean up for dinner. It isn’t like she’d put his name next to these daydreams or consciously thought to herself _I want a child with Mulder._

Now that the opportunity is there, she admits it to herself. The only other option is to do it with someone else — an anonymous man, some Ivy League grad with a great smile and unremarkable medical history. In those profiles, what do they tell of bravery? What do they mention of kindness, of passion, of empathy? When she looks at her partner, even when she’s so mad at him it drives her crazy, she sees a concoction of all of the best things humanity has to offer. Of course she wants that for her child. Anything less just seems unfair to a child who has no say in the circumstances of their birth. 

That they’re still in some phase of dating and he hasn’t backed off, despite knowing her intention to have a child and have one _now,_ strengthens her resolve. There’s no noticeable apprehension on his end. The pace toddles on slow as ever, because she’s the one stepping on the breaks. 

Trust between them never falters, at least not on the job, but her insecurity still disrupts their progress. With his actions, he tries to tell her he chooses her. Tries to tell her it’s never a choice he had to make. It just never feels like the whole truth. Scully catches herself waiting for the next ditch, readying her heart for that familiar humiliation. He watches out for the signs of that unease, steadies her with his touch, his comforting presence, by being more communicative over his whereabouts. Occasionally he expresses his feelings, if he senses the situation is drastic enough. But he holds himself back, too. She thinks that’s only fair. 

Keeping that in mind, when she asks him to go on this journey with her, to be the donor, to _father her child_ and thus be tied to her through this connection for the rest of their lives, she reminds herself that ‘no’ is always on the table and she will accept any decision he makes. This will have a drastic impact on their partnership. It will affect their work. She won’t lie to him and say it won’t. It’s a big ask. The biggest ask. He hasn’t found his answers yet; she has not found hers. 

But would this not be an answer, too, in its own way? 

She asks him over dinner at his place, not wanting him to feel trapped in public or awkward and floundering in her home as he tries to come up with an immediate answer. This will take time. Even if he says yes immediately, nothing will be set in stone until she’s given him time to think. She’s going to ask and then she’s going to leave, and nothing more will be said until he comes to her. 

That’s exactly how it goes. Fork poised over his chow mein, his face freezes in mild panic. Her heart sits somewhere in her stomach. She reminds him to breathe and reminds herself to breathe, and neither of them heed her advice. 

He deflects, of course, which she expected. That still doesn’t mean no. “I have to question whether you’re in the right mental state to be a parent if you want a child to come out anything like me. That’s just crazy.” Then he rubs his face with both hands, obviously regretting his choice of words. “I don’t actually… you’ll be a great mother, Scully, that’s not what I meant. I just…” 

“Mulder.” She lays a hand on his shoulder and he stiffens, which she tries not to take personally. “It’s okay. I’m just asking you to think about it. If you say no, that is your right and I won’t hold it against you. Alright?” 

He doesn’t look convinced, but reaches out to pull her into an embrace as she’s standing up to leave. He kisses the top of her head. She hadn’t realized how much she needed this reassurance, or how much she actually dreads a rejection. Her nose nuzzles into his chest and he squeezes her tight.

“I just need some time to think about it.” And that’s exactly what she gives him.

It’s a full week before he comes to her with his answer; a full week of trying to avoid thinking about it, of trying to pretend like it isn’t hanging over their heads. They take their lunches separately and she comes down to the basement less, worried that her presence might feel like pressure. She shops around for clinics in the meantime, so sure the answer is no. But she recognizes the unlikelihood of her going through this if he isn’t in it with her. 

When he looks at her in the eyes and says _the answer is yes_ , it’s almost like her body doesn’t want her to hear it. The thud of her heart sounds out louder than the traffic outside. The blood rushing in her ears grates on her like static. But his face says it all. Yes, yes, he said yes, and then he’s going off to donate. Relief locks into her with its fickle golden key, and she collapses on the couch and lets herself want this more than anything she’s ever wanted in her life. 

***

Mulder knows so little about children and what it takes to raise them it’s pathetic. He knows what _not_ to do, going off of what he experienced personally. He also knows that Scully deserves to be a mother. If anyone deserves to be a mother, it’s Scully. He can almost see her as some Swedish milk maiden in a meadow of sprawling flowers, surrounded by tiny kids who’d been kicked around and neglected by their parents. She’d tell them horrifying facts and kiss their scraped knees after she slapped a bandaid on them with a heavy hand. Then she’d tell them how loved they were, how special, how smart. And he wants that for her. He does. 

He’s still himself, though, no matter how much he often wishes he wasn’t. He’s still the selfish prick he’s always been. He’s so used to being the one to tug on Scully’s skirt, asking her to fix him up and heal the wound of his past abandonments. Christ, that’s fucked up, being jealous of a baby before it’s even been made. 

Then there’s the matter of work. There’s no way in hell Scully will be able to contribute as much as she does to the X-Files when she has a child to worry about. He wouldn’t let her. And that — well, he has to consider that. This is his life’s work. He unfortunately has to have it beaten into his head every once in a while, but he knows at his core he wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near where he is without her. She’s essential to this work. 

She’s essential to him in every single way it matters. Which is why he said yes. He meant it when he said he was flattered — that she would want him involved in such a personal thing moved him, deeply, and let him see something he’s been desperate for and fearful of for so long. He’s essential to her. Love is one thing, and they’ve admitted it to each other and they’re working on it, but this is something entirely different. It isn’t even need. Needing something implies an attachment that can’t be helped. They’ve needed each other for years. This bond between them _happened_ — as certain and inevitable as death. 

Scully choosing him as the father of her child is a choice. It is a desire. Once again Scully is telling him she wants him, has _chosen_ him, despite all of the ways he’s managed to screw it up. It’s not fair to her that he needs to be told so many times to make it feel true. He always thinks of himself as something that’s happened to her, the way her abduction happened to her, the way her sister’s murder happened to her, the way Emily’s death happened to her. 

Being the donor is his way of choosing her back, and he can only hope she sees it that way. It’s worth all of the fear and uncertainty. He doesn’t know how involved Scully wants him to be. He doubts she sees him as someone destined to be a parent, but he also doubts she finds him utterly incapable. He’s traumatized and battered, obsessive and unpredictable, and to put it plainly a total fucking asshole, but he’ll love the hell out of any kid that’s made out of Scully. No one ever accused him of not being able to love something. He even thinks he’d be able to do it in a relatively healthy way, nothing at all like the exhausting, deranged, and clumsy love he’s shown the mother for all these years. He’s learning. She’s teaching, and he’s learning.

The syndicate… is dead. Kabob’d. Burned to a total crisp. There are key players still floating around out there, and he still needs to know the truth about what happened to his sister. But the game has slowed down considerably. The rebellion will halt plans for colonization for years and years. He knows they can’t quit now, but when would they be able to? The best option, then, is to do the work and try and live their lives at the same time. It’s not ideal. It never will be for them. Something will always get in the way. Having something just for them, making something wonderful in a world where both men and monsters reign supreme, feels… right. 

Maybe he’s not thinking clearly. Maybe he’s just high off of flattery. It’s possible he’s manic. He also doesn’t know if jerking off in a cup was the totality of all that Scully expected of him in this process. One day she visits him in the basement and spots his stack of new books sitting in the corner — books about pregnancy and child rearing, which he flips through when the work gets slow — and that smile is a knockout, an ultralight beam that draws his hand to cover his eyes like the megawatt glare of the sun. That’s what settles it for him: Scully wants to have his babies and she wants to have him around for it, for god knows what reason, and it would be good for both of them to visit a therapist sometime in the next century. 

He sees, now, why she wants this so much. And he begins to let himself want it as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for everyone reading! IVF is daunting to write, lol. Your comments and feedback are extremely appreciated.


End file.
